Things Catholics Don't Believe: The Church is the Source of Salvation

Showing that the Catholic Church affirms that Christ alone is the source of salvation.

I recently had an idea for a dystopian novel where the rituals of the Catholic Church became somehow divorced from the grace and love of Christ which is supposed to animate them. In this imagined world, something else saves and sanctifies. An ironclad, moralistic, and unforgiving religious institution controls our eternal fate, guiding and punishing us sinners. In other words, the Church (as always, when I refer to “the Church” with a capital “C” I am writing specifically of the Catholic Church) became the source of our salvation.

This premise, I worry, some see not as fantasy, but reality—a reflection of the Catholic Church. So, as a Catholic in good standing, allow me to clarify the matter.

The source of salvation is the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and nothing else.

This is basic orthodox Christian doctrine. It is deeply Scriptural, and it is a truth which is affirmed by the official teachings of Catholicism.

First, let us look at Scripture. The book of Acts records St. Peter saying, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 RSV). Earlier in that chapter we see that the “name” Peter is referring to here is Jesus Christ. St. Paul tells Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.” (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Our Lord Himself says “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6). There are other examples, but these three are more than sufficient for our purposes. Scripture is quite clear that Christ alone is the source of our salvation.

Official Catholic doctrine affirms this. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) says, “In the forgiveness of sins, both priests and sacraments are instruments which our Lord Jesus Christ, the only author and liberal giver of salvation, wills to use in order to efface our sins and give us the grace of justification.” (CCC 987). The Church puts it even more plainly earlier in the Catechism: “Salvation comes from God alone…‘We believe the Church as the mother of our new birth, and not in the Church as if she were the author of our salvation.’” (CCC 169). Note the difference between believing the Church like you might believe something a friend tells you and believing in something. There are many other examples. However, these two show the Church unequivocally declares God's grace, obtained through Christ's sacrifice, as the sole source of salvation. This was further affirmed by Pope Saint John Paul II in a general audience given on May 31, 1995, saying, “Christ won universal salvation with the gift of his own life. No other mediator has been established by God as Savior. The unique value of the sacrifice of the cross must always be acknowledged in the destiny of every man.” So, we clearly see, both from the Catechism and from the mouth of a recent and canonized pope, that the Catholic Church does not teach that she or her rituals are the source of salvation.

The Church does, however, teach that she has a unique role to play in God’s plan of salvation. In Catholic theology, the Church is not a merely human institution. Rather, Jesus Christ Himself established her, granting her authority and power. The Apostles and their successors (the bishops) have exercised this power. The Holy Spirit has guided and guarded her authority and essential truths for the past 2,000 years (give or take). The Church is, therefore, a divine institution. In the Catholic understanding, this is true of no other Christian denomination. Christ Himself directly empowered her. Her authority, her rituals, and her sacraments are not man-made. God made and ordained them. Any power, salvific or otherwise, that they have, they only have because He gave it to them. In other words, the Church and her rites are not the source of salvation. They are, in the proper Catholic understanding, the ordinary “instrument” by which Christ made His gift of salvation available to us. You do not have to accept the Catholic view of the Church’s role (a point which I am not, in this essay, trying to argue for) in order to recognize that this differs greatly from calling the Church the source of salvation. The Church does not view herself as the ocean from which saving water flows, but as the river by which that water reaches us.

All Christians, regardless of denomination, have some mechanism by which the saving grace of Christ comes to His followers. Even the most adamantly sola fide (faith alone) Protestant believes you must, at the very least, ask Christ to save you, thereby putting your faith in Him, in order to be saved. Otherwise, all people would be saved without having to do anything at all. No major Christian group believes that happens.

Consider the following example. A Baptist minister comes to you one day and presents you with the Christian message. He convinces you that you are a wretched sinner (which you are) and that you need salvation (which you do) and that the consequence of departing this earth absent God’s saving grace is that you will spend eternity separated from God in Hell (which it is). You, understandably upset by this troubling news, ask him, “Sir, what must I do to be saved?” He replies, “I am glad you asked and I have wonderful news for you. It is remarkably easy. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved!” You say “Great. How do I do that?” He then offers to pray a prayer with you that goes something like this: “I confess I am a sinner and that I need salvation. Jesus, I ask You to save me now. I place all my hope and trust in You alone. Amen.” The minister asks if you meant it. You say that you did. The minister congratulates you and assures you that you are now saved. (This example, though it might seem contrived, reflects actual videos I have seen showcasing Baptist ministers' door-to-door evangelism. I did not choose to use it out of mockery, but out of a desire for its simplicity. I also do not believe this represents all or even most Protestant views of salvation).

In that example, the “instrument” of salvation is the prayer in which the person places their faith in Christ alone. However, neither the person being evangelized nor the minister would say that the prayer is where the saving grace comes from. It is only the “instrument” of that saving grace. So it is with the Catholic Church. She is not the source. She is the instrument.

Thus, we see that Catholics and Protestants (for example) do not disagree on the source of salvation. It is Christ alone. Indeed, all true Christians ought to be able to agree on this. Anything else shows a deeply flawed and disordered view of Christianity and salvation. The genuine disagreement, then, has to do with the nature of the instruments by which Christ’s gift of salvation comes to us.

And that, my dear readers, is a topic for another essay.